CHAPTER V
THE “CHIVALRY” FAKE
The justification for the whole movement of Modern Feminism in one of its main practical aspects—namely, the placing of the female sex in the position of privilege, advantage and immunity—is concentrated in the current conception of “chivalry.” It behoves us, therefore, to devote some consideration to the meaning and implication of this notion. Now this word chivalry is the dernier ressort of those at a loss for a justification of the modern privileging of women. But those who use it seldom give themselves the trouble to analyse the connotation of this term. Brought to book as to its meaning, most persons would probably define it as deference to, or consideration for, weakness, especially bodily weakness. Used in this sense, however, the term covers a very much wider ground than the “kow-towing” to the female section of the human race, usually associated with it. Boys, men whose muscular strength is below the average, domestic animals, etc., might all claim this special protection as a plea of
chivalry, in their favour. And yet we do not find different criminal laws, or different rules of prison treatment, say, for men whose stamina is below the average. Neither do we find such men or boys exempted by law from corporal punishment in consequence of their weakness, unless as an exception in individual cases when the weakness amounts to dangerous physical disability. Neither, again, in the general affairs of life are we accustomed to see any such deference to men of weaker muscular or constitutional development as custom exacts in the case of women. Once more, looking at the question from the other side, do we find the claim of chivalry dropped in the case of the powerful virago or the muscularly developed female athlete, the sportswoman who rides, hunts, plays cricket, football, golf and other masculine games, and who may even fence or box? Not one whit!
It would seem then that the definition of the term under consideration, based on the notion of deference to mere weakness as such, will hardly hold water, since in its application the question of sex always takes precedence of that of weakness. Let us try again! Abandoning for the moment the definition of chivalry as a consideration for weakness, considered absolutely, as we may term it, let us see whether the definition of consideration for relative defencelessness—i.e. defencelessness in a given situation—will coincide with the current
usage of the word. But here again we are met with the fact that the man in the hands of the law—to wit, in the grip of the forces of the State, ay, even the strongest man, were he a very Hercules, is in as precisely as defenceless and helpless a position relative to those in whose power he finds himself, as the weakest woman would be in the like case, neither more nor less! And yet an enlightened and chivalrous public opinion tolerates the most fiendish barbarities and excogitated cruelties being perpetrated upon male convicts in our gaols, while it shudders with horror at the notion of female convicts being accorded any severity of punishment at all even for the same, or, for that matter, more heinous offences. A particularly crass and crucial illustration is that infamous piece of one-sided sex legislation which has already occupied our attention in the course of the present volume—to wit, the so-called “White Slave Traffic Act” 1912.
It is plain then that chivalry as understood in the present day really spells sex privilege and sex favouritism pure and simple, and that any attempts to define the term on a larger basis, or to give it a colourable rationality founded on fact, are simply subterfuges, conscious or unconscious, on the part of those who put them forward. The etymology of the word chivalry is well known and obvious enough. The term meant originally the virtues associated with knighthood considered as a whole,
bravery even to the extent of reckless daring, loyalty to the chief or feudal superior, generosity to a fallen foe, general open-handedness, and open-heartedness, including, of course, the succour of the weak and the oppressed generally, inter alia, the female sex when in difficulties. It would be idle, of course, to insist upon the historical definition of the term. Language develops and words in course of time depart widely from their original connotation, so that etymology alone is seldom of much value in practically determining the definition of words in their application at the present day. But the fact is none the less worthy of note that only a fragment of the original connotation of the word chivalry is covered by the term as used in our time, and that even that fragment is torn from its original connection and is made to serve as a scarecrow in the field of public opinion to intimidate all who refuse to act upon, or who protest against, the privileges and immunities of the female sex.[101:1]
[101:1] One among many apposite cases, which has occurred recently, was protested against in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, 21st March 1913, in which it was pointed out that while a suffragette got a few months’ imprisonment in the second division for wilfully setting fire to the pavilion in Kew Gardens, a few days previously, at the Lewes Assizes, a man had been sentenced to five years’ penal servitude for burning a rick!!
I have said that even that subsidiary element in the old original notion of chivalry which is now
well-nigh the only surviving remnant of its original connotation is torn from its connection and hence has necessarily become radically changed in its meaning. From being part of a general code of manners enjoined upon a particular guild or profession it has been degraded to mean the exclusive right in one sex guaranteed by law and custom to certain advantages and exemptions without any corresponding responsibility. Let us make no mistake about this. When the limelight of a little plain but critical common-sense is turned upon this notion of chivalry hitherto regarded as so sacrosanct, it is seen to be but a poor thing after all; and when men have acquired the habit of habitually turning the light of such criticism upon it, the accusation, so terrible in the present state of public opinion, of being “unchivalrous” will lose its terrors for them. In the so-called ages of chivalry themselves it never meant, as it does to-day, the woman right or wrong. It never meant as it does to-day the general legal and social privilege of sex. It never meant a social defence or a legal exoneration for the bad and even the criminal woman, simply because she is a woman. It meant none of these things. All it meant was a voluntary or gratuitous personal service to the forlorn women which the members of the Knights’ guild among other such services, many of them taking precedence of this one, were supposed to perform.